Happy Earth Day!

Enzo

He is constantly in motion. It's a miracle he's gotten to 2.5 without breaking a bone. He is also the King of Mischief. At least twice a week Chris fills our Keurig Rack with coffee pods, and he arranges them just so. Enzo's right on top of that. He rearranges them to his liking.




He also has this habit of disappearing. I'll be folding laundry or emptying the dishwasher, and he sees this as his opportunity to Do The Things He Knows He Shouldn't Do. Today's disappearance was hilarious. I opened Hannah's door and found a big lump under her blankets. The lump did not respond to my calls, but it did suspiciously crackle like a candy wrapper.





Eldest child needs to get a little more inventive with her Easter Candy hiding.

Traditions

Every year we have a little party for Hannah's birthday. It's usually a weekend-long event, because my friend Ben and his kids spend the night. This year was great- it was a smaller party that ended on the early side, and a chill night with my favorite people.

This morning was lovely. I had my favorite bagels, some coffee, the Sunday paper, and then we went outside to sit in the sunshine. I couldn't ask for more.


Every year I wax nostalgic, and this year is especially significant because Hannah's turning ten. Ten years ago, Hannah was a wee 9 pound bundle of yummy baby. Now she's this creative and independent pre-teen. Sometimes I see her from behind and I'm reminded that in a few years she's going to look more like an adult than a child.

So yeah, Birthday weekend. I look forward to Hannah's birthday more than I look forward to my own. It's a birthday for both of us, in a sense.

Thrifty Yarn

I live 2 minutes away from a Savers, so I tend to stop in frequently. I have a circuit- first the books (specifically knitting books), then kitchen ware (vintage Tupperware and Pyrex), then men's sweaters and ties (cashmere and Vineyard vines), then to blankets (I'm waiting for a pink Hudson's Bay). The knitting/sewing/craft stuff is next, and then I make a run through the linens and cross my fingers in hopes of a Viking Husqvarna.



Today I scored, both in the Pyrex and knitting category. There's some Malabrigo and Blue Sky Cotton, some Peace Fleece worsted, an unidentified tweed, a handpainted sock yarn, and Lamb's Pride Cotton Fleece. I also got two (more) cashmere sweaters, both for about 6 bucks each and a sweater that resembles Buttony in my favorite shade of brown.

Sad sad sad

I had the best of intentions when I started this blog. I thought I would update it rather frequently and have a nice little linear pictorial/account of the knitting and the kiddos.

hah.

I think this is my fourth or fifth entry. This is partly because I am entirely unfamiliar with the Blogger layout, partly because I get lazy and post on LJ instead, and partly because of my camera situation.

My (crappy) digital point-and-shoot disappeared recently, and I think Enzo may have thrown it out (good riddance). Chris has one really nice camera left, and I'll use it every now and then, but then I have no patience when it comes to begging him to process the raw files.

So I'm going to re-resolve to use this blog more frequently. Tonight I thought to ask if it was even possible for Chris' camera to use a card I could read on my computer. It does! Once the battery is charged, I'll make a go of it.

Since last time...

A bunch of things

First off, it's January 20th, 2009. I remember when Bush began his second term. Hannah was 5 and I thought, "oh my gosh, Hannah will be nine when we get a new President". And while I voted for Gore and Kerry, I was never truly excited about them as candidates. So here we are, on inauguration day, and for once, I am really truly excited to watch Obama be sworn in.

On to less important but still exciting things.... I am knitting my first sweater for myself. I've knit a few for the kids, but knitting an adult-sized sweater seemed like a huge undertaking. I've never knit a proper swatch, where I cast on more than 4" and knit for more than 4" and then washed and blocked. However, I figured that if I'm going to spend hours and hours on a project, I do not want it to fit poorly or not at all, or to blossom after the first wash.

So here goes, my first sweater, still in progress...


So I'm still working on it, and I think I'll be done by the end of the week. Then I have to find a shop that carries the buttons I have in my mind. Ha!

Chris and I really need some time for us. We pretty much spend NO time alone, with the exception of some events we've needed to attend without kids and a very few dinners together. Early on in our relationship we spent a weekend on the Cape, where I vomited in every toilet in Falmouth. It was nice though, in the moments I wasn't puking. We were going to spend the night of Chris' swearing-in in a hotel room in Providence, but I just couldn't see spending $200 to sleep 15 minutes away from our bedroom.

So we've been talking about going away for our fifth wedding anniversary. It's not going to happen any time around our actual anniversary, which is in early June, when House sessions are going to be crazy long. Maine, the Cape, New York, and DC were all mentioned, but we decided on Newport. We both just want to have a few nice meals, spend some time reading on the beach, and do some RI touristy stuff- downtown Newport, the mansions, Ocean Drive, etc...

I'm really excited, even though this is a LONG ways away.

Merry Kissmas!

So for Christmas this year, I wanted to go a little more handmade. In past years, I've made a late November declaration that I'm doing an entirely handmade Holiday. Then my friend Beth reminds me that I say that every year and then I go shopping when it doesn't work out.

This year though, we took it easy on the shopping. Chris made the little ones a play kitchen and I made some clothing for the girls' dolls. I also knit for my mom, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law. We gave a lot of pictures, and really made an effort to give one special gift instead of a lot of unspecial gifts.

For Felicity and Mia, the American girl dolls, I improvised my first sweater pattern. This was really easy because they're so little that screwing up doesn't require much ripping out. I was a good knitter though- I knit a "swatch" and did my math. The pattern is very loosely based on the miniature sweater ornaments in Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

Hannah's been asking for a guitar for like 6 months or so. Pretty much all of her homeschooled friends play guitar, so I relented and she got a 3/4 size classical guitar. She was super excited.
Last but not least, the greatest Christmas feat Chris pulled off this year- Making a wooden kitchen 4 days before Christmas. The sink still needs a faucet and the oven still needs its window, but it's already gotten a ton of play. I think they'll need a fridge next, because we suddenly have a lot of play food.

come on now it's the first day of summer

so i've had these placentas sitting in my freezer for quite some time. Annabelle's has moved with us twice, Enzo's once.
We've made jokes about accidentally cooking the placenta, and made grand plans about planting a tree and burying the placentas underneath. Today, we actually did it. We buried the placentas underneath our brand-new anniversary-money tree.


The children were a little grossed out by the actual placentas. Enzo kept pointing and saying "bluck". They were in pretty good shape for being frozen for nearly 4 and 2 years. Into the hole they went. Hannah had a little pout about the fact that her placenta was not available- she was born in a hospital-based birthing center and bringing the placenta home wasn't an option. I don't think I'd want to mess with a 9 year-old placenta anyways.

ta da!

Gretel!

She's done!

At the beginning, I had a bit of trouble. The tubular cast-on was no biggie, but after 6 rows or so, I started to think that the brim was too small or that my head was too big. After much obsessing and many hours researching the subject on Ravelry, I decided to go up a needle size. I then obsessed about whether a six was too big or not for... the entire time I was knitting.

It turns out that a six was perfect. It fits snugly, but not too snugly, and if it stretches I'll add some elastic. I don't often knit for myself, so I derived a little extra pleasure out of knowing I could actually keep this FO.

I'll make a few more for the girls. It was a fun knit and I'm glad that my cheap-ass self sprung the 3pounds ($6) for the pattern.

April Fool's

So I had the best plan for an April Fool's joke yesterday, but Mother Nature had her way.
The plan was to dig out my last pregnancy test (out of a pack of two) that Chris had bought when I was pregnant with Enzo. Well, he bought it before we knew I was pregnant, but anyhow...

My friend Wendy is pregnant and my plan was to get her to pee on the stick and have the little digital window say "pregnant" and then to spirit the test home and give Chris a little M.I. Except, this would be really unbelievable because I have my period. So no April Fool's for us.

This weekend is Hannah's ninth birthday party. Nine years ago I was hugely pregnant and a freshman in college. I was in class the day before I delivered and I was back to class within a week.

Here she is at birth. She weighed 8lbs, 15oz and was out in 4 pushes. She's still really not into taking things slowly.




She was a totally mischievous toddler. I once found her hidden between a bed and a wall,
furiously eating a Cadbury Cream egg.





It was only her and I back then, and she was my little buddy. We pretty much went everywhere together. She traveled where I traveled. We had fun. Being a single parent wasn't easy, but I think I did an okay job.










In this one she looks exactly like I did at that age. So many people commented on our similarities. By 4, her hair was down to her waist and it was SUCH A PAIN. I can't count the number of hours I spent brushing it.




Chris and I started dating around then. The first time she met him she jumped on him like he was a jungle gym. He took it pretty well.



When she was five, she got a new sister and a haircut.


For the most part, Hannah is a really great big sister. She's definitely got a future as a babysitter. She has decided she wants twins- a boy and a girl. Better her than I.




Now she's turning nine. It's her last single-digit year. She'll be driving off before I know it.

Happy Birthday, kid.