The babe is growing

We had a bit of a rough night last night so while I intended to blog, it just didn't happen.  We lost track of time and realized Maegwin was still awake (and without a nap too) at nearly 10:30!  I don't know how she just goes and goes but by that point she was over tired and just trying to wrestle her into a diaper for bedtime was too much for us.  We managed tooth brushing and a lot of crying.  She is doing really well on potty training and most days doesn't need diapers and even sleeps overnight dry just fine but in the morning she is in no mood to use the potty.  Like her father, she needs time to ease into the day.  I can easily imagine her as a coffee drinking adult and one for whom flex time will be a must.  hehe



We've had a very good month and she has been getting so much more mature.  We went to her first official birthday party with a friend and she had a blast!  It was at a bounce house place full of bounce houses and slides.  She went down the slides still with me but climbed up to all of them herself.  The handholds are basically just glorified nubs and the slides are really high up so I was impressed.  I even felt a bit squeamish about the tallest one-mostly for fear that in going down it with her I would squish her into the bumper at the bottom.  I knit a little fairy and a flower purse for it for Maegwin's friend and it was a huge hit.  Maegwin was even good about giving it away but was very excited to show Gabby all of its "features".

She tucked her in:


We made her a hair a little punk rock!  I had to tie each of those pieces individually into the head.  It took a LOOOONG time but so worth it:


I think her face turned out especially cute.  Gabby named her Tinkerbell:


I always enjoy seeing my knitted creations well loved and her mom is a co-worker of mine so she understands the time that knitting takes.  Maegwin told Gabby without me prompting "Thanks for inviting me Gabby!  This is the best birthday ever!"  I was so proud.  :)

This Easter we continued the tradition of having Easter at a restaurant.  It just worked out with Mom still recovering from surgery and my sister working.  No mess and we get to meet halfway.  It was very nice to hang out with everyone and Maegwin even ate calamari like a champ.  She also ate a good dose of eggplant parmigiana.

We put on lipgloss together:


Glamour shot time!


Family hugs:



Semi serious faces-it's funny that her expression is like mine in this one.


Now the silly:


Not sure where Sarah is looking in this one but Maegwin looks like she is plotting something...


With the grandparents but sadly we caught her on the downside of a laugh.  She does this silly giggle where she covers her mouth partway.  So funny.


Now, from this Easter day came the Great Ducky Sucker incident.  Maegwin got a cute marshmallow-y ducky sucker from Mom and she loved it but not the way that one would think.  She proclaimed that they were going to be best friends.



She carefully tucked him into her carseat straps with her and spent most of the day mothering him (i.e. giving bottles, tucking in, etc.)  The next day I headed out for work and Josh was calling our financial planner to roll over his 401k from his last employer.  To set Maegwin up to be occupied during the call, she had been saying she wanted to eat the sucker.  Now, Josh anticipated the minefield this might become and asked if she was sure.  What follows is an excerpt of said conversation:

Maegwin: "Daddy, I want to open him."

Daddy: "Now Maegwin, you understand if we open his package that you might eat him and then you won't have a ducky."

Maegwin: "Yes...I want to eat him"

Daddy: "Are you sure?"

Maegwin: "Yes, Daddy. I'm sure."

Daddy-holding the scissors against the package: "I'm going to cut the package open now."

Maegwin: .... (says nothing-has stopped responding and is fixated on the ducky)

Josh cuts the package, hands her the sucker, and she runs off happily.  He dials the phone and starts talking to Brent.  All is well until they both get on hold with the 401k company at which point a soft crying issues from another room.

Daddy: "Is everything ok, Maegwin?"

Maegwin: "Daddy, I ate his soft yellow hair...."  sniffle sniffle

Daddy: "Well, I told you this would happen.  Why don't you put him away and I will see if I can fix him when I get off the phone."

Maegwin: "I want to eat his googley eyes"

Daddy-now sensing that this is a problem but unable to do any serious negotiating because he is on the phone: "I don't think that is a good idea."

Maegwin runs off again.  Time passes and then shrieks issue from the other room and uncontrollable sobbing.  Josh tells Brent to hold on.  Brent has two children of his own, one of which is Maegwin's age so he understands.

Maegwin: "We were gonna be best friends, Ducky, but now we can't be because you....don't....have....EYES."  followed by incoherent sobbing.

Daddy: "It's ok, Mommy will fix him when she gets home from work.  Let's put him somewhere safe." He spends some time at this negotiation but finally gets her to give him the sucker which he wraps in a paper towel and stuffs in the fridge.  I was laughing so hard when he told me this story.  I'm pretty sure that makes me a bad mommy but I could just picture it all in my head so clearly.  After much searching between Mom and I we located another ducky (and a spare) which I intend to shellac or modpodge so his wanton sugary goodness does not tempt his friend.



I can only imagine the mental conversation that Maegwin had with herself.  "I want to eat the ducky...but he is my friend.  I love playing with him....but he looks so delicious."

I'm going to need to write another post later as this one is getting long and there is gardening and housework to be done today.  Next up-garden updates and knitting finished object.

February Follies

Not really, just realized I haven't posted in about a month and I try to at least do that often.  We've been rather busy with both moms having surgery-one a gastrointestinal procedure, the other a back procedure.  Both seem to be getting on well and we are happy.  I drove out to the hospital Mom was at for her GI procedure and hung out for the day.  I was glad as it gave my stepdad a chance to go home and take care of the dogs and I could help with telling the nurse that Mom was in pain and they needed to up her meds and to feed her ice chips.  One wouldn't think ice chips sound that appealing but I can attest after going through labor that they were like bringing water to a man in a desert.  I also remembered having crazy chapped lips so I provided some good 'ole Burt's Bees for her.  Love ya, Mom!  Whilst waiting to hear from the surgeon I chatted with a lovely older woman who was waiting for her husband's procedure.  She was knitting a blanket and I was knitting my Beekeeper Quilt hexipuffs.  I continually find it amazing that I run into knitters wherever I go and that they generally seem to be a lovely lot of people who share a common language and passion.  Knitters unite!  I'm sure if we ever got a president and congress who knitted the U.S. would indeed be a force for good to be reckoned with.  LOL!  Anyway, here's my progress on hexipuffs so far.



Someday I'll have enough to tie together and make a quilt.  They are a nice way to pass the time though.  I also knit Maegwin a cute little fox hood but haven't put the ears on yet.  Here it is before all ends were worked in.



It keeps her very warm!  The designer has such beautiful and whimsical designs for kids and most of them are knit in bulky yarn and go up to adult sizes.  I've finished a few dishcloths-a Hello Kitty one for Maegwin and a flower one for an upcoming mini swap.  I have to say I don't know how people can knit tons of these. After two my hands felt awful.  I just hate the feel of dishcloth cotton!  I love knitted cloths though..they are all I use for washing my face.  I also finished up a quick pair of mittens for Maegwin.  It was so cold and her cotton ones from Target just weren't cutting it.  Why don't we use wool anymore?  Seriously, cotton doesn't do crap in the winter.



A belated thank you to Grandma & Grandpa & Auntie Laura for the lovely cookie bouquet from Valentine's day.  We are all still eating through them and Maegwin was ecstatic!



I'm working on some toe up socks which I've never been successful at (except for my sister).  They are a bit further along than this photo.  We shall see how they progress.



Maegwin continues to grow and be silly and fun.  The other night she made the classic kid move of putting olives on all her fingers.  She was slowly shaking them off into the dogs' mouths at the foot of her high chair.  So crazy.



We have some lovely cabbage seedlings growing which we hope to put out in our cold frame before too much longer.  We also will plant some lettuce and spinach soon outside.  Eggplant and onions are planted but not yet sprouted.  That's about it for us.  Hope all is well with everyone out there!  Oh, I've been listening to Jane Eyre (look, I've not forgotten my schooling) and it's pretty fun.  There's a podcast called Craftlit and I think she also does a version without all the crafty talk called Just the Books so if you're a non-knitter don't let that stop you.  It is fabulous and includes a lot of history around the books as well as terms, interesting links, etc.

Happy birthday to me

Everyone in my family is asleep and it is only 8:30!  I'd be remiss if I didn't take a bit of time from knitting to blog it up a little bit.  We put the tree away yesterday so our living room seems to have grown a ton.  I love it but we don't have a big room to start with so I'm happy to be done after about a month.  I pulled in my rocking chair and am rocking and knitting on hexipuffs for my Beekeeper's Quilt.  If you've not heard of it, then you're probably not a knitter.  If you have it seems you either think it is the most awesome idea ever or that it is nuts.  I fall into the former category.  Essentially one knits tons of tiny hexagons and then lightly stuffs them and ties them together to form a cushiony pile of blankety goodness to cover oneself.  I'm trying to do at least one a night so I figure at the end of this year I will have enough to tie together and make a queen sized cover.  It's a great use for all my scraps from sock knitting also.  Maegwin loves playing with all the puffs I have so far.  She arranges them, tosses them, etc.

I had my birthday on Monday and it passed fairly uneventfully.  Thank you to everyone for the lovely cards, wishes, gifts, and patterns.  I feel so special!  For breakfast we made this butternut carmelized onion galette. It was delicious!


The recipe actually made two and this was several days of food for us.  It's from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook we got from Josie & Matt for Christmas.  Thanks you guys!  We have been making stuff from it non-stop and it is all so amazing.
Maegwin also picked out how I should decorate my birthday cupcakes-Cookie Monster!  They were really fun and easy to do.  I started with a basic devil's food cake-the recipe I took to the state fair when I was a kid.  You remember that, right Mom?  We cut out some mouths and shoved in tiny chocolate chip cookies for Om Nom Nom'ing.

Then I piped on some blue vanilla buttercream icing.  Note to self-make sure to get the icing warm before piping.  The eyes are Wilton white chocolate candy melts turned upside down and with a chocolate chip stuck on each.  Googley eye placement is essential for the cookie monster look.

Fun!
We went to Maegwin's friend Emma's house to deliver her brother's sweater I finally finished.  Sadly it was a little short on him.  That's what I get for taking so long to sew it together and put buttons on it.  I'm hoping it will block out.

The first photo is more true to color.

After all the holiday knitting I'm working on two pairs of socks for me.  The first of which are these-Dogwoods!

I also just finished sewing on some suede soles for my Bunny Slippers.  Just need to put on the ears and embroider the faces.  Mine didn't turn out quite so roomy but I like them fitting a little more trim.
That's all the updates for now.  A whole blog post without pictures of the kid?  Nah...

2012-year 3 in pictures

For tonight's post I thought I'd go on a little trip down memory lane and show month by month how our little sweetie has grown.

January:


February:


March:


April:




May:




June:




July:




August:





I had to throw that last one in there since we spent so much time on the trampoline this summer.

September:




October:


October was light on pictures as she was going through a "clothing optional" phase.  lol

November:





Yes, all the fur kids are still alive.

December:




We are looking forward to a super fun and exciting 2013.  Happy New Year's everyone!

A Little Reflection

It's near enough to New Year's Eve and even I am not immune to taking a bit of time for reflection. December as always was a super busy month.  Oddly work was pretty demanding even though quite a few people were out.  Usually things wind down but I definitely always worked at least my full day plus an hour or two.  I'm giving a pretty big presentation on January 8th that I'm a bit nervous about.  The attendees will be all senior leadership-very high above my pay grade that's for sure!  Good thing I like public speaking.

First up, I'd like to say thank you to everyone for making Maegwin's birthday month so special.  The packages just kept coming all month long and it will probably be an adjustment not having things to open.  LOL!  She loved everything and thank you cards are on my agenda for today.


She got this fabulous city scape from Aunt Therese and Uncle Jay and the boys. She loves knocking on the cars and telling the people to get out. It's pretty hilarious.
One of my Ravelry friends, Tara, knit her this little wrap me up puppy which Maegwin named Pickle. She got a digital camera from us with which she took this photo. She has quite an eye!
We took pictures of each other taking pictures too. hehe On the 22nd we got our first snow of the year. Very late for around here-I was beginning to wonder if we'd have another crappo no winter which we really couldn't afford. We need the moisture since we had such a bad drought last summer. I played with the snow setting on my camera while Maegwin played outside. It's amazing! It captures the falling snow so well.  
She tried to catch snowflakes in some little pots.
We put this bowl out to measure our snowfall.
We tried winter trampolining but Maegwin declared it was too slippery so we got down fairly quickly. I have to say, I wasn't sorry
.
All year Maegwin has been requesting dragon cupcakes for her birthday.  She didn't want a party or anything else in particular but she had a litany of  "My birthday is in 'cember and I will be three years old and I will have a dragon cupcake" so I pretty much had to make one.  After much research, I decided to make some from fondant.  I only did the one for her because I didn't have time and we didn't have any other kids over or anything anyway.


I think he turned out pretty great!  We packed him up and took him over to my mom's for a bit of birthday celebration.  I imagine this scene with the theme to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Staring each other down to see who will strike first.


It was Maegwin!


She basically only ate his nose and eyes off before declaring the fondant "too spicy".  She says that about things with lots of food coloring in them.  I don't particularly blame her since I think fondant tastes like cardboard sugar.


I didn't really get any good shots of Christmas...I think Mom was taking most of the photos since I was stuck between Sarah and Maegwin handing out presents.  They were swarming me like flies!  I did get one of Maegwin in her new fairy outfit.  She insists on having a dress or skirt on to dance so this will get a lot of use.


And I got one of her hugging cousin Sarah.  She was happier than she looks.  She just doesn't like to stay still.  Hello Kitty was the theme of this Christmas and she is holding what she named "Momma Kitty".


On Christmas night we got more snow.  Winterstorm Euclid, I believe?  It was pretty overblown in the forecasts...we only got about four inches of snow.  During a break in the snow, Maegwin and Daddy went out to explore and look at the creek.


I used my zoom to see them up close.  A little blurry but it was 15x so I can't hold still enough.


It was funny to watch the little dot get closer and closer. She had a great time out there.
One of my favorite things about snow is how it makes the trees look. Winter without snow is so dreary.
We cleaned off the cars before everything iced over.
Maegwin tried some snow triking...there's probably a reason why trikes are seldom seen in winter.
I'll try to blog some more tomorrow-need to get those thank you cards out. Have a great New Year's everyone!