March post

Hello gentle readers! Let me apologize to you all for my long absence and reassure you that I am in fact quite alive. As always seems to happen, I get busy or sick and can't manage more than one post a month. At least I'm consistent! On the bright side, you will all be happy to know that both my doctor and I got sick of the constant sinus infections after the last one and I went for a CT of the sinuses. Turns out I have chronic sinusitis. My doctor looked at my scan and pronounced it "the most jacked up" she had ever seen. She's a cool doctor-I heart her. Every single area of the sinuses that should be all black on the CT is grey with the tiniest sliver of black. Yay me! I saw an ENT doctor this week and he said I'm a good candidate for a balloon sinuplasty so I'm set up for that April 23rd and Josh is looking forward to seeing it all go down. The nice thing is the procedure is with local anesthesia, is done in office, and only takes 30 minutes so my recovery time should be about a day. If it doesn't work, I still have the sinus surgery option as a backup but this is less invasive. I'm hopful that it will give me some relief and make me not have constant sinus infections. The housework I'm sure will be thankful as well.

I find it rather hard to catch up on a month's worth of activity but luckily we are boring people so it can't be that hard, right?

I went to a stamp camp and as my snack I baked a rainbow cake. I found the directions on a lovely blog that I recently discovered called Bird on a Cake. Linky here. It was surprisingly easy and impressed everyone. I think next time I'm going to make the cake from scratch though. I'm not a fan of box mixes. It basically involves separating the mix into six parts and dyeing each a different color. You start pouring progressively less of each color into the center of the first pan and then flip the color order in the other.

Note the nice new cake pans! I found some really nice ones that are made in the USA out of recycled steel. They are fabulous!

We enjoyed the piece that had to be taken out to level the top. It's sitting in our other new acquisition.

I bought a frying pan when Josh and I moved in together that we have had for a long time at this point. It is used almost daily and was showing some serious signs of wear. When I went looking for cake pans I came across this lovely ceramic skillet that has a finish that is non-toxic and it is crazy light. I loved that it was a green solution to our pan dilemma. The bonus is it basically requires no oil to cook things. The white interior also makes it easier to see when food is done.
Anyway-back to the cake. Finished it looked like this:

I've been trying to improve my cake and cupcake baking skills so that I can make good stuff when Maegwin is ready to have parties. I also made some fishy cupcakes for Maegwin's St. Patty's day party at school which were a big hit.

Just FYI though, it is crazy hard to find circus peanuts now. Who knew! I had to search like three stores and I only was able to procure one bag so the fish didn't have as many fins as I wanted. I'm hoping to make some chickie cupcakes for Easter.

Luckily being sick doesn't slow me down on the knitting front! I have been zooming along on quite a few different projects. I've got one Swedish Fish sock done. This is a Spilly Jane pattern and if you are a knitter and haven't checked her stuff out, do it. She makes really fun whimsical colorwork patterns and even I, a novice at best with Fair Isle knitting, am able to do them.

I used two colors of Spud & Chloe Fine sock yarn and I really like working with it. It seems springy and feels like it will hold up well to wear.
I also have completed one sock for Maegwin and was working my way down the foot of the second one before the fancy struck me to blog.

The pattern is King Me from the Petite Purls website. Their stuff is cute and free and I love it. The yarn is Knit Picks Simple Stripes which is discontinued now but I like it. I'll probably still have a half ball when I finish these so I might make a few spares for the inevitable missing baby sock to not slow us down.
The last thing I've finished recently is this cardigan worn by Maegwin in today's egg hunt.

It's Tiny Tea Leaves and I originally made it short sleeved because we had a weird heat wave of 80 degree weather last week and I feared that spring like winter would skip us altogether and she wouldn't even be able to wear the sweater. Of course, today was 41 degrees so we only took her coat off for a few quick shots then put it back on her. sigh.

The egg hunt went well though again no one from Maegwin's class showed up so we still didn't meet any parents of kids her age. I don't understand what the deal is. Oh well. She was definitely more into it this year than last and ran from egg to egg quickly scooping them up.

It was hard to get a clear shot since she was half running around and squealing happily.

She stopped a few times to dump her bag out into another one because it doesn't really have a ton of room. I did this on purpose so we can give her some candy but even full it won't be a ridiculous amount.

She crawled behind and under bushes and let nothing stop her.

Even the cold only made her come and snuggle for a minute. She loosed a mighty battle cry of "EGGIES!!" and continued.

This little girl kept standing in front of an egg but seemed totally disinterested in picking it up. Maegwin hovered in front of her for a while before the girl's dad finally told Maegwin to take the egg. It was funny to watch.

She was thorough and even checked inside the caterpillar.

Then we headed in to empty them out and check the loot.

Just tootsie rolls and Hershey Kisses but it was a good time.


She fell asleep on me after we ran a ton of errands. I wrapped her up in her new quilt and it reminded me of Dune. Worm sign, we have worm sign!


Other than that, the other two big pieces of news are that I changed jobs and that we bought a riding mower. The job thing is just a lateral move within my company so really not that big of a piece of news. The hours are better though-well they will be once they back fill me...We are psyched about the mower though! So nice to not have to push mow our crazy big yard and now we can help our neighbors out who helped us mow. It should be delivered tomorrow so we're going to fire that up as soon as we get it.

Where is winter?

It seems we are trapped in a perpetual autumn here.  My yard is as Miracle Max says in the Princess Bride "mostly dead" or "slightly alive".  Unfortunately, unlike Cary Elwes in that awesome movie, it is a very unattractive sight.  It has also been extremely muddy so it makes going outside a very messy prospect.  Our driveway is a mud pit since we didn't quite have the funds to get gravel trucked in before winter started.  We weren't planning on not having nice frozen ground to work with.  There is no feeling quite like going out to start the car (it's still cold enough for them to need warming up in the morning) and feeling your nice work shoes sinking in heel first.

My weekends have been filled, as always, with my desperate attempts to keep the wreckage of my house at bay.  These largely fail and I'm trying my best this year to not let it get to me.  I do, after all, have a two year old.  Still I somehow feel that if I can't keep my house clean I'm somehow failing.  I acknowledge this is absolutely ridiculous but there it is.  On Saturdays we go to toddler yoga which gets Maegwin some well needed exercise and also gives her a chance to see her friend, Emma.  It's during her normal nap time though so we've been trying to adjust to that.  Some weeks this means her nap is totally shot and she sacks out at 4 pm, completely exhausted, then sleeps until 6 and is unable to go to bed at a normal hour.

Since I last blogged, I've had a birthday.  We didn't really do anything except enjoy some lavish cupcakes from Whole Foods.

Maegwin had it all figured out that she would eat the turtle, I would eat the monkey, and Daddy would eat the elephant. When asked who would eat the hedgehog, she got quite serious and said "No one," with authority.

She did wish me happy birthday though which I happened to catch on film.


I've managed to get a bit of knitting done as well. I participated in a "What's at the bottom of your garden" swap which had some very small knitting requirements. I made a frog:

and a snail:

The snail was quite bellicose and faced off against the Wheely Bug. I'm not sure who would have won that matchup because Maegwin intervened.

I also finished a cowl in some very soft grey yarn that has been in my stash for several years.

She got into helping me take pictures.

I'm currently knitting an Autumn Vines Beret in some alpaca that was the second yarn I ever bought. At the time I had no idea what one did with sport weight yarn, I just knew I loved the color-a mix of blue, pink, green, and purple. More pictures to come soon. I have about 15 rows left to go.

We missed getting our winter cover crops in but honestly with how warm it has been we're going to try today to get them down. I think that they will germinate nicely. I can't believe it's almost time to order seeds again. Without snow I've lost track of what time of year we are in.

Yesterday during nap time I made some play dough for Maegwin using this recipe. It turned out pretty well but I think my food coloring may have been a bit old. It was really settled and I ended up with very blah colors. The recipe was easy though and she's been having a great time with it. I see more dough making in our future!

We're going through a Mommy phase right now and it's a bit exasperating, but I'm sure we'll make it. I just wish she would let Daddy help sometimes. Time to get some breakfast before I am summoned again. Cheers, All!

A selection of favorites

Maegwin has been getting into watching Journey on Youtube.  Yep, you read that right...Journey.  She especially likes this video and will ask me to "turn on Steve Perry" which is something I assure her is most likely not in my power.  hehe  She also enjoys all of the Iso videos which is an oddly adorable dachsund doing very mundane things to great music.  My favorites are Iso takes a bath and Iso on the couch (which also reminded me why I love Ben Folds Five).

I've been getting some knitting projects done.  I finished up those fingerless mitts that I talked about for Mom and will give them to her when I see her next.  I also finished a hat for Maegwin's friend Emma which turned out really cute and I hope to make one for Maegwin soon.

Things were pretty whacky at work this week and while I am a patient person I found myself being really ill-tempered. Hopefully this weekend will give me some time to unwind. Enjoy!

CA trip through Thanksgiving

We packed up the essentials and went to Mom & Kevin's house for a night.  That day both Maegwin and I had fevers so we really weren't very good company.  We spent most of the time on the couch watching Netflix and cuddling under a comforter and we went through a fair bit of wood keeping a fire going so we could stay warm.  I think I also went through roughly three jumbo boxes of tissues.  Maegwin napped a lot and sweated it out on one of Auntie Laura's giant teddy bears.

Maegwin also worked on doing the sticks juggling that Aunt Laura was showing her while we were there. She definitely enjoyed playing with them!


That night I actually sent Josh out to buy a vaporizer because I was having so much trouble breathing. It did help though we steamed out the walls of the room we were in. I'm glad we had it though. We had a rough time and he did a lot of walking around cradling Maegwin and her menagerie of creatures. Of course, the beloved Moo and in this photo some random lamb.


On Wednesday, we went back to Grandpa's house to make Thanksgiving dinner for him. Josh's sisters came up also and Josh made his first turkey. It turned out great but sadly I didn't get many pictures on this day because I was helping and wrangling Maegwin as well. I baked some of my bread too.

The girls packed everything up into multiple meals and froze it so hopefully we've stocked the freezer for a while. We also got a chance to play Carcassonne with Josie and Matt while both of the kids took crazy long naps. We had such a great time with it. Matt & Josie got it for us for Christmas and we look forward to playing it again. I really enjoy those kinds of games that have a dynamic board that is either built up or changes with each time you play it. We really need to get our board game night up and running again.

Thursday we went over to the other set of grandparents' house and celebrated Thanksgiving as well as all the November and December birthdays. I think October too since Josh's was celebrated. Maegwin enjoyed hanging with all the gals.

She of course was feeling a bit better by this time as I was getting worse. I swear children are like small traveling petri dishes. Maegwin got tons of presents but she didn't quite get it at first I think. She thought we were saying pretzels which she had rather enjoyed on the plane ride out. Each time she'd open something up she'd say "Where are the pretzels?" and look very disappointed. Once I told her with greater enunciation she was much happier.
She got a tea set from her great-grandparents.

Which she happily shared with Aunt Jean and Aunt Wendy's puppy.

She was quite a good hostess.

She read with Baby Lily.

She also seemed very fascinated with her clothes. She loves the babies at her daycare whenever she gets to see them.

One down, one to go

I've got one mitt down and one to go!  I might do this yet...to distract you all, please enjoy this lovely picture of Maegwin putting on her jammies by herself.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas day tomorrow and to all of my friends and family I can't be with, please know that I miss you and am thinking of every one of you.

I'm crazy

Yesterday we went to Maegwin's 2 year check up. She is 35 inches tall, holding strong in the 75th to 90th percentile on height and 25.2 pounds, so 25th percentile in weight. Everything else is fabulous and the doctor said she was advanced on her verbal skills. Yay!



After we went, she sacked out in the car for all of 20 minutes to drive home and then flatly refused to nap until 3 pm. By that time I was really ready for her to go to sleep as she became progressively more grouchy. There is something about getting a toddler down for what you know will be a long nap. It makes you ponder crazy things and feel fairly invincible in the fact that you were able to tame such a wild creature into submission. My bright idea? Take something from my More Last Minute Knitted Gifts book and whip it up for Christmas. Simple right? My plan was to turn this yarn into these fingerless gloves. Wagers, anyone?

wow-seriously

I see that I have not written a blog post since October and frankly judging from the state of my house I'm not surprised. Work has taken us by the feet, whacked us around a bit, and left us in a state of disarray. Add into that mix two bouts of bronchitis for me (the most recent of which was during my one and only vacation of the year, but I digress) and you have the makings of a crazy couple of months. Maegwin is quite cheery, continues to thrive, and seems largely uneffected by the chaos. They say that disorder is the sign of a brilliant mind so I just chalk it up to us raising her to do magnificent things.

We went to California over the Thanksgiving holiday and on the Friday before we were heading out, both Maegwin and I had stuffy noses and mild coughs. No big deal, thought I, it's just a cold but I'll pack my rescue inhaler just in case. I had just recovered from the first batch of bronchitis, which took a little over a month and was finally back to going to the gym. Our flights took a total of ten hours travel time, with a stop that was not included on our original itinerary in Denver. Be warned, if you don't have to change planes Southwest doesn't consider it a stop and thus doesn't add it. In the Vegas airport Maegwin insisted on walking. We were all the way on the other side. She walked until we got to the A terminal and then started crawling and eventually just sprawled on the floor. She looked as defeated as I felt. I had the bright idea to put her on our roller bag and she rode happily, waving to everyone like a beauty pageant winner. We finally got into Oakland and noticed our car seat was not on the jetway...we had gate checked it so it would be right there for us. No worries, said the flight crew-if you checked it through it went down with the luggage and you'll have to pick it up down there. Ok, we loaded up and headed down with Maegwin in the Ergo. Let me pause to say the baby carrier was probably one of the greatest inventions ever. On to the baggage claim! Out came all our bags and we waited and waited but no car seat. A nice man standing next to us said that car seats come out in the irregular luggage area. We headed over there and saw several men just standing around waiting. We asked them about our car seat. They all looked at each other and said there were no car seats on the flight. I lost it then. Why did we bother to gate check the darn thing if they were going to lose it anyway? I had visions of it sitting on the jetway at the Denver airport in our "unpublished" stop. We started stomping toward the lost baggage office and I happened to glance to the side at a cordened off area. There was the car seat (minus one strap padding)! There was no mistaking the bits of sunshine cereal stuck to it so I knew it was ours. We grabbed it and headed to the rental car place. Everything seemed to go ok until they sent us out to the kiosk to pick our car. It was pouring down rain and dark by this time. The woman was working two counters alone and basically told Josh to go find the mid-size cars in the lot. We had no umbrella and I had on some felt flats that were more like wet wool slippers at this point and a very wet baby in an Ergo. Seriously, Dollar, shame on you! He came back ten or so minutes later and we loaded up and made it to Grandpa's house to settle in.

Maegwin made herself right at home and started stalking "doggy Emma". She loved her instantly and the entire trip as soon as she woke up she asked to find doggy Emma and Grandpa.

We got a rare Maegwin and Mommy photo.

Then we just hung out that evening. It was nice to decompress after the flight and my head was hurting and the cough was getting worse by this point. Oh, I also brought my neti pot and I can't sing its praises enough. I believe without it I would have been at the emergency room because that sinus infection would have gone to bronchitis much sooner.
Maegwin played with Emma's toys and entertained herself as any self-respecting two year old can do.

By the time our two days were done and we switched to Mom and Kevin's house, Maegwin and Grandpa were fast friends.

More on days 3-9 later as I have to go attend a two year old climbing on a coffee table.