Radiant Twist

Nobody faint.  It really is me!  I promise!  I know, I know…..I suck at blogging.  But let’s all get past that and I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to.  LOL

There has been some knitting, though apparently morning sickness hinders my ability to knit quite badly.  I’ll post more of my knitting next time.

In the meantime, we’ve had a busy summer!  We’ve had lots of visitors…including Jared’s parent’s (see pictures below), Jared’s grandparents (we had lots of fun at the Children’s Museum!)

(Cedric playing in the bubbles at the Children’s Museum)

(Sophia climbing)

And last but not least, Jared’s brother and his family visited……and apparently I have no pictures!  But really they came to visit.  LOL
We had lots of warm days and trips to the farmers market.  The kids love the farmers market.  Probably because mommy gets them icecream every time we go.  Who can pass up homemade Maple icecream!?!  We got a membership to the Science Museum and went a couple times.  I was even brave and went all by myself!  Oh, and we moved the kids into a room together!  They love their new room and it helped make space for the new one to come.

We went to Maine for my cousin’s wedding where Sophia and Cedric got to meet a whole bunch of family members that they didn’t remember and I got to snuggle all the new babies!  The wedding was lovely (and HOT!  OMG…the weather was SO hot that weekend!).

My baby girl turned FIVE!  It’s hard to believe that 5 years ago, she was just a tiny, tiny baby and she’s grown into this independent, funny little girl.

Here’s Sophia dressed up in her princess clothes (she got dress up stuff for her birthday and it’s been a huge hit!) with her friend Nora.  We had a party at my parents, complete with Spiderman birthday cake!  And then on her birthday we had a few friends over and had cupcakes.  Very low key.  Just what mommy was going for!  LOL

And she started Kindergarten!  With much trepidation and plenty of reinforcements…..

we went to the bus stop for the first day.  (And this is where things kinda went off track…..the bus never showed up and we all had to troop back home and I had to run her to school in the car.  But thanks for coming for her first day, mom and dad!)  There was much excitement (on Sophia’s part) and a lot of tears (on mommy’s part!), but she really loves school and riding the bus.  She’s learning lots and making new friends.  Kindergarten has been great for her, so far!

Cedric, also had his first day of preschool.  Talk about your double whammy.  I had to send both my kids for their first days on the same day.

Cedric seems to love preschool…..whenever we ask him if he likes it he says NO.  However, he’s always excited to go.  LOL  And it’s helping him make strides in his speech.  Speaking of speech…..Cedric passed through his 6 month early intervention evaluation with flying colors!  He’s still behind, but has made a LOT of progress.  My little boy, who said only a handful of words has a 70 word vocabulary and in the last week or so has started to make his own sentences, count to 10 and sing the ABC’s.  Everytime he uses a word it’s like a miracle to me.  I can’t express how grateful we are for EI and the wonderful therapists he’s been assigned.

And last but not least…….I’ve been growing us a brand new baby boy!  Here he is…

at 18weeks.  Much to the sadness of Sophia, we will be adding a new baby brother in January.  Everything has been great so far, but I’m tired and forget I can’t push myself as hard as I used to.  Growing babies is hard work!  LOL

Here’s me at 22 weeks (today!)

Next time, knitting!

There hasn’t been much knitting around here as of late, but I have a good reason!  I’m working on a new project that has been taking up most of my energy.

We’re having a baby!  Morning sickness and the sheer exhaustion that come with the first trimester have pretty much ground my knitting to a halt, though I have a few things in the works.  Lots of baby knitting coming up though!!!!

We spent the last half of April preparing for my husband’s dad and step-mom to visit.  They came for 2 whole weeks!!  It was so fun to see them……it had been a REALLY long time since we had last seen them.  And their visit was SO fun.  Full of fun activities and house projects.  Jared and his dad replaced our front door, fixed our staircase, hung 2 brand new ceiling fans and did various other odds and ends around the house.  It was so nice to be able to cross some of that stuff off our to-do list!  Plus, we never would have been able to replace the door without Wayne’s know-how!

Now, on to the fun stuff!  We spent 3 days on Cape Cod, enjoying the ocean breezes (just not the ocean water….it was chilly!).  We also spent a whole day in Rhode Island touring the old mansions.  The kids loved seeing the big old houses and running on the giant lawns!

Jared, his dad Wayne, Sophia, and Cedric

my son, king of the castle!  LOL

Sophia, at the beach.  She loved the water and we came home with a bunch of shells and rocks.  We also got to watch a pod of whales just off the coast…..we watched them jump in and out of the water for over an hour.

The kids (including Jared), hamming it up in Provincetown.

Cedric, at Sturbridge Village, a working village modeled after a New England village in the early 1800’s.  We saw all sorts of cool stuff….including a tin-smith, tons of animals and a man firing a musket!

Jared and Sophia behind the grain mill on a little bridge.  Sophia was fascinated with how the water turned the wheels!

We also spent two days in Boston-sightseeing, visiting the Aquarium, taking a trolley tour and having some REALLY good seafood!

This is the funniest thing I have seen all day.  Go, look!

It’s snowing.  Again.  Just when the ice had finally all melted from the driveway and I was beginning to think we might escape the cold clutches of winter……….nature plays a cruel trick and we get 14 inches of snow.  Luckily, Jared decided to stay home and shovel, which is good because there is a lot of it.

LOL…check out my van, it’s buried in snow!  Ah, well….at least the road crews are great here and do a pretty good job keeping the roads cleared.  And, we thought the worst was over when I took this picture, but……it’s snowing again now.

Let’s move on to something more fun…….gadgets!

It’s been quite a gadget-laden month for me.  First off, my new cell phone….a t-mobile G1.  My mom started working for t-mobile about a month ago and they get a really amazing phone plan and added me to theirs.  It’s a great phone and I love being able to stay in touch with everyone on text messages.  My other gadget came this weekend…..a kindle!  I’ve been wanting one for a while now, and now that people are buying the Kindle 2, I found a sweet deal on this kindle 1.  I’m totally in love with it!

Oh, and there’s been knitting!

Pattern: Starflower by Jeannie Cartmel

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Mediumweight Socks that Rock, in Sugarplum

Start: February 3, 2009

Finished: February 28, 2009

and I started this….

A koolhaas just for me!  I’ve been wanting one since I made this pattern for my dad and this yarn is so purty I decided to go for it.  I’m hoping to finish it soon!

Or, as my husband refers to it…..the Month of The Suck.  Seriously, this month hasn’t been that great.  There were the normal things that make winter with two kids hard…..snow, ice, frigid temperatures, the never-ending parade of illness.  Then we had some highlights….

About a week and a half ago, I threw my back out moving our daughters bed.  This landed me on the couch for about 4 days and involved my husband staying home from work, because I couldn’t walk.  (I’m greatly appreciative of this!)  Luckily, I’m up and walking now, though I’m still in a little bit of pain.  Ick.

This Saturday, we were doing housework when my husband discovered that our water heater was leaking.  6 hours later we forked over $975 to have the stupid thing replaced and still ended up being without hot water for almost three days.  While I could still do laundry and wash dishes (we have two water heaters), we couldn’t take showers.  That was very icky.  I’ve never been so happy to see a plumber in my entire life!

And, to round out the week, we have a massive snowstorm coming tomorrow (10+ inches) and Thursday dh is taking the morning off because we have to go have Cedric’s hearing tested.  He failed the hearing tests at the pediatricians and he doesn’t talk much so we need to find out what’s going on.

But, on the bright side January is almost over and being laid up with a bad back has facilitated me getting some knitting done…….

Pattern: Seamless Infant Kimono, by Carina Spencer.

Yarn: 100purewool.com 3-ply Merino in Sophie

This was a relatively simple, quick knit.  It’s for one of Jared’s coworkers, he and his wife had a baby about a week ago.  I just need to add the buttons and it’s ready to go.

I know, it looks like a black-and-white blob.  It’s not.  I’m hiding the identity of this knitting project to protect the innocent…..or in this case, my swap partner!  This is what I’m working on for my Loopy Ewe Swap 3 partner.  Once it is off to it’s new owner I’ll show a better picture…..but I love it so far!!!

And last, but not least, I have a design project on the needles.  It’s going to be a baby hat, but first I have to make some decisions about the pattern.  It’s in time out while I finish the swap project.

I’m so excited to announce the release of this pattern.  I made this all the way back in August for my daughter, wrote up the pattern fairly quickly and then……sat on it!  I have been wanting to do the release for a while, but things kept getting in the way.

I just want to say a little thank you to everyone who helped me!  I’m a little nervous about doing my first “sweater” pattern and needed a lot of support to get here.  A special thanks to my husband who helped do the layout and the chart, to Tanya for pushing me to do this and to my great tech editor, Alana.

The pattern is available in the pattern shop, on Ravelry and in the Etsy Shop.