Preparing to garden

Whew, long time no blog. We've been very busy here. A few weeks ago I met up with one of my friends from my December mommies group on Ravelry. Turns out she lives here in Columbus! Her baby, Emma was very cute and we had a great time sharing our experiences. The babies chatted for a few minutes and then zonked out for the rest of the visit. We definitely need to do it again when they are a little older and can interact more.

Last weekend we finally bought the lumber for our raised beds and had it delivered. We're adding two more plots this year and putting up critter fencing around it all to keep animals out. I read in one of our magazines about putting chicken wire along the bottom and swooping it out onto the ground to discourage digging animals. We're definitely doing that. Hopefully the groundhogs won't be back this year. We haven't seen them all winter so I'm keeping fingers crossed. Mom and my niece, Sarah, came up to visit while my sister moved. It was nice to see them. Our neighbor had her grandkids over so they came by and all played. The kids decided to make crowns for the dogs and spent lots of time carefully gathering supplies from the yard to make them with. Planck was the most patient of them all. As long as he is getting attention he pretty much lets you do anything.

The little face in the upper right corner is my niece. Here Planck turned his head to show off his hydrangea, twig, and pine needle topper.

They ran the dogs all over the yard and they were TIRED by the end of it. They all slept so much after the kids went home.

Remember when our wee Maegwin had to have a blanket in her swing so she wouldn't fall into the leg openings? Well, no longer.

She also chats quite a lot with us. I got a video of her, of course just as I had poured myself a bowl of cereal and Josh was on the phone with his family. hehe

Too cute! She laughed today while she was in the tub with Daddy and it was too precious. I ran in but she stopped just as I came in the room. We found her a bouncy seat recently. She loves the one at her daycare so much. I want to knit her some toys to swap out for the ones on the toy arch though to keep it interesting. The one at the daycare has an octopus with dangly legs that she likes to gnaw on. I'm going to try to design one like that. It should be pretty straightforward, I might even publish it for free on Ravelry if it doesn't suck.


My thumb is still not any better and in fact the pain is progressing into my wrist now. My doctor is referring me to a hand specialist to get cortisone. Fun, fun. I've had it in my other hand for a cyst so I'm not looking forward to it especially but it will be nice to use my hand and not have excruciating pain again.

Today Josh was home with Maegwin just having a Daddy and daughter day. She did great with her bottles and drank a five ounce one at lunchtime! I'm so happy to see that. When I got home we all went outside and hung out while Josh laid out the lumber for the raised beds. Hopefully we'll have some pictures to share soon. Maegwin loved being in the warm outside and feeling the sun. She was in her bouncy for quite a while after she ate. We're very happy with our little family!

Death of a coffee maker

Today we mourn the death of our coffee maker. Each day for five years it faithfully produced cups of coffee for us-grinding our beans and filling our kitchen with its delicious aromas. We bought this one when Josh and I moved in together back at the beginning of 2005. It has recently begun not realizing its top isn't closed and beeping incessantly for 10 minutes or so. Today it only brewed half the water in it and shut itself off. Time for a new one. ;(

We had recently gone to get a shoe solution for our closet since now we both are employed (meaning we both need dress clothes) we rearranged. We now share all the closet space and my pants get to hang down instead of being on a bar intended for shirts and muddling around with my shoes strewn all over the closet floor. The reason I mention this is because I used the 20% off coupon we got in the mail for that item. Imagine my dismay when we now needed to make a large purchase. Well as I was grudgingly cutting out the $5 coupon from the Bed Bath & Beyond flyer I noticed that if I signed up for e-mail notifications I could get a one time 20% off coupon. Bingo! We went out and got this one instead which doesn't have the flip close lid for accessing the grinder. We think it will not wear out like the other one did. The salesman said we should bring our old one in and they might replace it. We still might do that but honestly after 5 years, I'm not holding out much hope. If so, we can have it as a backup.

We were all over town today. Spring has sprung and we're ready to tackle getting the raised beds built and ready for all our produce. I got the notice from Heirloom Acres that our seed potatoes and onion sets are on their way. We can't wait! We already have a lot of our seeds and have been saving up our egg cartons all winter to start them in. We didn't want to buy the pricey sets this year and these will still decompose quite well.

Yesterday I volunteered at the Salvation Army summer camp at Greenwood Lake. This is my second time going out there. The first time I was six months pregnant with Maegwin. I pulled off tons of old wallpaper in the main lodge and helped a bit with painting the cafeteria walls. I couldn't do that for long though because of the fumes. This time we were working on the ceiling tiles in the cafeteria. The original plan was that they would give us poles and rollers to just roll the paint on. Well, that didn't work so we started taking them each down, painting them, and putting them back up. I'm amazed we got it all done but I was so tired! After I picked up Maegwin from daycare and headed home I was literally fighting to stay awake. We got home and both sacked out in bed until Josh got home. It was fun though. I really like the mission of the camp and the people that work there are so great. It's nice that our work has an emphasis on volunteering and lets us take a day to do it. Hopefully I'll get some pictures to post up here when I go to work on Monday.

Oh, and Aunt Jean, Aunt Wendy and Cousin Michael-thanks for the awesome stuff! That not a meat eater onesie had us cracking up. She should fit into it just in time for the family reunion. hehehe

Hoodie!

Just a quick post...it's 8:40 and I need to get things ready for tomorrow. I finished Maegwin's hoodie and it came out great! Luckily it fits perfectly. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't. Thank goodness when I started it way back in September I made the 3-6 month size. Maybe somewhere in the back of my head I knew she would be a big baby.

Pattern: Jasper Diamond Hoodie from Vintage Baby Knits. Ravelry link
Yarn: Knitpicks City Tweed DK in the Romance colorway
Needles: size 4 addis and Knitpicks interchangeables
Mods: None really
I love this yarn and would happily knit with it again. It is very soft and warm, but feels like it will hold up really well. It stood up to me ripping it out multiple times. :P This sweater was my first with set in sleeves and my first hood. The hood is made using short row shaping and then grafting along the back. It makes that adorable point. :) The hood reminds me of gnomes and if you know me, you know I have a thing for lawn gnomes. All in all I love the sweater and I think she'll get lots of use out of it as we prepare our garden for the season.





Now it is all blanket all the time until it is done. Ok, ok I might do the Niles & Cleo dolls for Maegwin as a breather. They are too darn cute.

Home sick

This week is my second week back at work and to celebrate I got sick. :P Thank you to my boss's boss for bringing in a lovely head cold so I could catch it. Luckily we had a few extra days built in so I could be sick and still go to the family reunion and Josie's wedding. Anyway, I'm home today and wanted to blog to catch everyone up.

Working and having a baby is hectic! Basically we get home at about 6:30 and have two hours before we have to go to bed. In that time we have to rinse out diapers from daycare, pack the daycare bag for the next day, wash & make bottles, wash out my pumping stuff for the next day, pack my lunch, prep the coffee, deal with the dogs, eat dinner, try to bond a bit with Maegwin...oh yeah and try to relax. :p We've been pretty stressed and tempers are running high but luckily we both have a good sense of humor and can recognize when it is the situation and not each other that is unnerving us. It makes me sad that we get Maegwin in her cranky tired stage though. She is so smiley and happy during the day but she cries almost every day the entire ride home and is so done by the time we get here that she nurses and goes to sleep.


Nursing her at lunch has worked out well so far. Everyone at work is being very supportive of me being back and adjusting to working pumping into my schedule as well as going to nurse Maegwin. Honestly that hour in the middle of the day is helping me keep my sanity. I ordered more diapers today so I won't have to do laundry during the week and we've switched to doing all our ironing on Sunday so it's not part of our morning routine. Josh has gone back to doing all the dog outs and feeding in the morning so I can focus on getting Maegwin and I ready.

The daycare is really impressed with her cloth diapers and wipes. Everyone says they can't believe how easy they are. We get a daily report of all her activities. She had a bit of trouble at first with bottles and was only taking an ounce or flat out refusing them. The last few days she has consistently taken them and drunk the whole ounce. Yesterday she even drank two ounces! I plan to send her tomorrow with two ounce bottles to see how she does.

So far today we've been pretty relaxed. A couple of nursing sessions and lots of napping. That's good because I don't have the energy for much else. The house is a mess and I don't even care. :p Einstein was checking out Maegwin in her swing today. She is getting so much better at reaching for things.

I have a doctor's appointment in a bit to get my thumb looked at. It still isn't getting any better and I'm pretty sure I shouldn't just be taking ibuprofen all the time. I'm going to see if they will let me weigh Maegwin on the baby scale to see how much she has grown. She doesn't have a checkup until April and I'm curious. She is now in some 3 month and some 6 month clothes. She finally outgrew her frog and duckie sleepers. Mom bought us a couple of fleecy non-footed ones that she has been wearing to sleep in. They are six month size and she's at the bottom of the weights listed on the label but that's good. She can wear them through to the warmer weather. The thing I love is they have pockets. What a baby would need pockets for, I'm unsure of but I think it is funny to imagine what they might put in there if they could.


For now we are enjoying our wee Maegwin so much. She is an absolute joy. I think she even laughed last night and is trying to turn over.


For all interested in pictures, I exported all my Flickr photos to my Snapfish so if you want to order prints just let me know and I'll send you a link to them. I know both the grandmas wanted some so I obliged. :) I'm putting in an order for my dad since he doesn't have internet access.

Gah! I totally forgot to mention that I'm going to be donating breastmilk. With Maegwin taking smaller bottles, I'm left with a lot of extra. I pump at least 9 ounces a day and she is currently only drinking two-hopefully ramping up to four this week and next. That leaves me with all the freezer stash from when I was off plus additional each day. I contacted the milk bank of Columbus and they are definitely in need of milk. I have to get a blood test, a release from the doctor, and fill out a questionnaire. The minimum donation is 200 ounces but I have six months to provide it. I already have 100 ounces in the freezer. I'm so excited I'll be able to help out babies who need it. For more info (I know some other new moms read my blog), you can go to hmbana.org to find a milk bank in your area. They distribute all over the US and Canada.