Easter recap

Up until now I haven't had time to share all the great pictures we got of Maegwin's first egg hunt.  Last year she was far too small to really get it but this year was just right.  There was an Easter egg hunt hosted at her daycare which we thought was great so we all packed into the car and drove over to Dublin to enjoy the festivities.  They had juice, coffee, and donuts and various crafts for the kids.  We were disappointed that only one other family from Maegwin's room made it to the event.  We hoped to get to know the other parents better.  The Lil Dreamers room had their own area for egg hunting though so it was nice for Maegwin to get the hang of it without having to fend off the other children.  It was very rainy all morning so the area was quite muddy and wet but she didn't care at all.

Maegwin immediately found two eggs.


She happily banged them together for a while.  I think she would have done this rather than look for more.


Eventually we persuaded her to put them in the bag. Mommy forgot any kind of basket so we improvised and used my knitting bag. Thanks Go Knit pouch!


She was so careful putting them in. It was super cute.


Her friend PB also helped find some eggs. We bought him on the way because we got to Dublin early and had to kill time. He can go in the bath too.


We caught some of the action after we got her to put the first two away.


Once she figured it all out, the egg hunting was fast and furious. She would find some and start calling for the bag and for Daddy.




You can see how wet and dirty her pants were by the end. Miraculously her sweater was spotless.


She enjoyed showing her eggs to the other baby she encountered.


It was a fun time and we all enjoyed it.

Catching up on the knitting

I have woefully neglected sharing all the great things I have finished knitting lately.  Along with that traveling came  a whack of knitting to keep me sane in airports and on planes.  It was funny the amount of knitting I thought I could accomplish vs how much I actually did.  I often found myself tossing in the yarn for "just one more project"-terrified that if I got delayed or stranded I would run out of knitting.  On my trip to Dallas alone I packed yarn for three pairs of socks, a pair of handwarmers, and a sweater.  Really, in two days?  I amuse myself sometimes.

First up-some lovely mystery socks from the Sock Knitters Anonymous group.  This was the March mystery pattern and I really love how they turned out.  I used some Dream In Color Smooshy that I got in a swap in the Spring Tickle colorway.  They were just the ticket to chase away the last vestiges of winter and remind me that green growing things were just a few short weeks away.


Next up-a fun cardigan for Maegwin.  Mom went through her stash and gave me a bunch of yarn she had bought to knit things for Maegwin.  Despite her best efforts she can't keep up with our little growing weed alone so our knitting powers combined should keep her covered in handknits for a while.  This was a yarn called Kool Kotton and I have it in two colors, grey and mint green.  I started with the grey to have something that went with lots of outfits.  The pattern is Cardigan Rose which is a very low cost pattern from Knitpicks.  She really likes it and the size I picked seems to be perfect.  I found some cute little monkey buttons at the Sewing Rabbit Etsy shop.  Check it out-she has some really cute stuff.

I caught her in action while unpacking a drawer.


Sitting in the sun.


Helping unlock the door to put the dogs out. (She really can't unlock it-heck I barely can half the time)


And her favorite activity-watching the dogs wander around the front yard.


Next I signed up for a cupcake themed swap in my Itty Bitty Knits group on Ravelry. It's a really fun group of people and the assignment was to knit the cupcake pincushion and hat by Susan B. Anderson. I love her stuff so I was totally in. We could then add cupcake themed stuff to the package as desired.
My pincushion was a total hit with Maegwin who promptly ran off with it while I was posing it for a picture.

The cupcake hat took a turn on Maegwin's doll since it was a newborn size. This was also my first crochet cherry and picot edge. The cherry turned out great, the edging not so much. It isn't like the picture because I made a mistake but it took so long I didn't have the heart to redo it. I think it looks ruffly.

I also knit a cupcake washcloth as an extra. I think it turned out pretty cute.

I packed everything up along with a cupcake cookbook and sent it out yesterday. It was the Hello Cupcake book which was the prequel to the What's New, Cupcake book that I already had. I also ordered a copy for me. Not only do I find these books inspirational but Maegwin also loves looking at the pictures.


Until next time, stay cool everyone!

Totally random

This post is probably going to be all over the place. I realize that there was no post in April and there are a few reasons for that. I was traveling every week for at least one day and sometimes two. This put the house into an amazing amount of disarray not so much because being gone one day a week was bad but because at the beginning of April I was gone a few consecutive days and it just sort of piled up little by little. When I was home I tried to give all my energy and focus to my family, cleaning up the aforementioned mess, and getting the garden and plants in shape. Here are some things I discovered along the way:

1. I can work for 21 hours straight in a pinch. Yep, you read that right, two-one not one-two hours. This consists of getting up at 3 am to go to the airport, signing in there to work until I get on the plane, then working once at the office until 1 am.

2. If you check into your hotel at 1 am, there may only be one room left and even though you specifically reserved a non-smoking room it will be a smoking room. They will ask if this is ok because they know you can't say no at that point. I did say that I had no choice except to go back and sleep at the office which got them to throw in free breakfast, but I digress.

3. I have the most awful luck with travel. A whole group of us were making these trips and my flights were always delayed. ALWAYS. If I flew with co-workers, they were sucked into the miasma that is my bad flying karma. If I flew alone on a separate flight I'd be stuck for hours in another city while they all arrived on time and got a normal amount of sleep rather than four hours between checking into the hotel and going to work in the morning. I do not know why this is, but it is how it is. Pieces of planes broke (luckily always before we took off), tornadoes happened, etc.

4. I hate flying Delta or American. Their seats are small, they assign seats so I could not sit with people I knew, and their seat belts are odd. The last part is annoying because it causes an issue with my knitting. You see, gentle readers, I am a two circular knitting kind of gal so while I knit one set of circulars dangles. Those circular needles just happened to fit perfectly into the weird holes on the seat belt and this scraped the coating off two of them before I realized it. I was able to use my trusty nail file to make them somewhat bearable so I couldn't (shudder) not knit, but they are basically ruined and will need to be replaced. Delta and American also do not have as good of frequent flyer programs as Southwest and flying to Dallas is a lot of points to miss out on. Just sayin'.

5. Airport food is crap. There are a few exceptions to this but by and large it is crap. When I was trapped in Chicago O'Hare I had the time to go to Macaroni Grille and that was good. I got wine and it made me at least pleasantly buzzed enough to not care yet about being delayed for three hours. They also have a great bookstore.

6. Airports have a complete and utter disregard for nursing mothers and sick people. Columbus has no family bathrooms once you go through security. Thus whenever I was delayed and had to go pump, I had to go all the way back out and stand in the stupid line again. The other bit is from when I was stuck in Memphis. There was a girl in the bathroom who was throwing up for literally forty minutes. I called for paramedics. The airport's solution was to send a policewoman. She got her a bottled water (not bad) and said for her to take her time. We later heard her going in and telling that same girl she had to get on her plane. Uh...ok lady, she can barely stand at this point and has been vomiting for forty minutes. Don't you think maybe she should go to a hospital not on a plane? That ride for me went on to be the most turbulent of my life with lightning, thunder, and sheeting rain all around where I had to focus on not vomiting (and I have been known to sit on a boat in the middle of a tropical storm calmly eating a sandwich while others toss their cookies overboard) so I can't imagine that poor girl. Sometimes people really suck.

Anyway, long story short the travel is done until at least July and we decided that we should not travel to Texas during the spring. Lest you all think things are total crap, there was time to get adorable pictures. Maegwin spent a lot of time outside while we pulled down the old fence destroyed by the deer and erected a new and improved fence. She got acquainted with the gnome.

She pointed out his nose and eyes to Mommy and Daddy. She is quite good at that.

She spent time picking the grape hyacinths that shoot up wildly and randomly in our yard this time of year.

She selected a stick to practice her ninja fighting skills.

It was just a little big for her (this is a branch that fell off one of the trees).


That's about all the blogging I have in me for right now. I'm nursing a double ear infection and am pretty tired today. Next time: the first Easter egg hunt and what knitting I've finished during my long blogging hiatus.