Radiant Twist

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.

Yeah!  I’m so excited to have these done.  Not only because the boy needed them so badly, but because I didn’t really want to knit them in the first place.  (bad mommy!)

Damn, isn’t he the cutest boy you ever saw?  LOL….I might be a little bias. Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of this kid??

Pattern: Itchy Fingers Longies, by Jessica Jensen

Yarn:  Mosaic Moon Blue-Faced Leicester in Goblin

Start: December 29, 2008

Finished: January 11, 2009

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One final thing, I’m trying to clear out some inventory so all yarn and fiber in the etsy shop will be 20% off for the next week.

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Ahhhh, vacation is over.  The Christmas tree has been put away.  Hubby has gone back to work, Sophia back to school and mommy back to the gym!  LOL  We had an exceptionally good Christmas break.  Hubby gets about 2 weeks off at Christmas because his company closes.

We headed to Maine to visit my parents for Christmas the day before Christmas Eve…..that night we took advantage of one of the perks of staying with the grandparents and went out for date night!  We had dinner with my brother and his girlfriend and then went to see the movie “Seven Pounds”.  It was a rather slow moving movie, but fascinating and we all enjoyed it.  The next day was full of wrapping presents, keeping Sophia and Cedric from eating their body weight in Christmas cookies and preparing for the next day.  My cousin left some “magic dust” with my mom for the kids (a mix of oatmeal and glitter!) for them to spread out on the snow so that Santa could find them.  They had so much fun going out in the snow to do this!  (All the Christmas photos are courtesy of my dad, I didn’t take my camera up with me…..his is much nicer than mine!  LOL)

And then, of course, Christmas morning……

Christmas was a huge success with the kids:)  They got a brand new kid-sized table from mimi and papa, which has been great.  It has a roll of paper on the bottom that you pull up and they can color on, plus they love eating at it.  Sophia got a Leapster game player and has LOVED it.  Cedric got many many cars and dinosaurs.  All in all, it was a great Christmas.

And of course, we can’t stop without showing off a few Christmas knit goodies….

Koolhaas for my Dad.  He shaved his head earlier this year and requested a hat to keep his head warm.  I made this from Malabrigo so there wouldn’t be any itchiness.  He likes it!

Sophia’s Blankie……I never thought I would finish this thing!  But, it was worth it because she has really loved it:)

The only thing I don’t have pictures of I think are my mom’s hat and cowl……I finished them right at the last minute and didn’t get to take photos.  The next time she comes I will!  I love the way they came out.

Anyway, Christmas is over and we had a nice break from regular life.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday too!

This weekend my baby boy turned 2!  It’s so hard to believe that he is two.  He’s still a baby to me in so many ways (funny, Sophia seemed SO big at this age….perspective, I guess!).

He’s always been a snuggler, ever since he was born.  Still is.  Loves to sit and cuddle in my lap.  So different from his sister who never loved to cuddle.  It amazes me everyday to see how different they are from each other.

In his mama-made blessing outfit.

At the Santa Monica Pier on our trip to California.  He was 8 months old!  His personality is so laid back he was the perfect baby for this trip.  He was happy to be along for the ride.  I always feel like Cedric gets short-changed since he is the second child and doesn’t get to have one on one time with us as much.  This trip was fun for me to be able to spend time with just him.  I enjoy that now too with Sophia in preschool….the mornings we get to spend together playing and running errands are fun.

His first Halloween….I’m sure someday he will want to shoot me for these pictures and that costume.  It was SO cute though:)

first steps…..

He’s so silly.  He loves to be funny and knows that he’s funny.  He will do things and then get a sly smile on his face and give us a big grin, knowing that he’s being cute and funny.  He cracks me up everyday with his facial expressions.

Honestly, I think I have the world’s cutest children.  But Cedric is adorable in a totally different way from Sophia.

and mischievous.  Oh my, mischievous.

Happy Birthday, baby boy.  It’s hard to imagine that you will love another child as much as you love your first, but I love you baby boy:)

Around my house today…..

There’s soup in the crockpot.

There was a lot of Christmas-ing…..we put up our tree, I finished my Christmas shopping, listened to Christmas music and there were Christmas cards in the mail!

I finished a Christmas present.

I made tea.  (this is my awesome Christmas present from my husband!  He gave it to me early:)  It’s a japanese water heater….it keeps the water hot all day long…no more waiting for it to boil!  Yipee!!)

Oh, there’s also been spinning!

And Cedric got a birthday present from Nana and Papa.

1.  My baby lost her first tooth yesterday!

I totally freaked out when she told me it was loose 2 weeks ago.  I thought, surely she was too young to be loosing teeth.  After a quick research trip through google, I found out that no, it’s not.  Apparently, the younger you get your baby teeth, the younger you are when they fall out.  My friend likes to joke that Sophia had a full set of teeth by three months……not really, but she did get her teeth very fast……so apparently we’re just hitting another milestone.

Isn’t she a cutie-pie?

2.  The long march towards Christmas blankets for both kids continues.

Sophia’s only have about 4 more stripes left to make and then the edging.  I’m hoping to have it done this weekend.  To keep up my spirits, I started my mother’s present yesterday…..I needed something smaller to work on.

3.  The spammers have been exceptionally persistent lately and I just deleted 1080 spam comments.  Wow…..get a life guys!

Woohoo!  I finished the Little Man’s Christmas blanket a couple of nights ago, washed it, blocked it.  Now it is dry and pretty and best of all…..finished!!!!!!  (we shall not discuss the fact that I need to start the little miss’s blanket now.  I think I may have lost my mind!)

Pattern:  Ribbons Baby Blanket by Evelyn Clark.

Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in Navy, Evergreen, Grey and Turquoise

I actually really enjoyed this pattern.  It’s simple to memorize and the knitting is pretty mindless once you get started.  It just gets a little difficult to manage after a while.  I love the way it came out though and I think it will be a good snuggly blanket for the little man.

I also finished some spinning this weekend.

That’s right…..I still do that!  LOL

Finished Object: Fingerless Mitts

Fingerless Gloves by Petra

Yarn: Mama Blue Knitting Goods Troika Sport

Colorway: Boudoir

These are soft and so squishy!  Plus, they were pretty simple so it only took me about a week to make them.  I wore them on Halloween night handing out candy at my parents.  (Side note….we went up to my parent’s house in Maine for Halloween.  Sophia had a ball helping hand out candy to my parent’s 600 trick-or-treaters.  Seriously, 600.  It was insane.)

And this is my work in progress.  A blanket for Cedric for Christmas.  I started it about 3 weeks ago and it’s going well, only about 3 stripes left.  I like the pattern quite a bit, it’s fairly mindless which is nice.  The only problem….now that I’m almost done the stripes take over 45 minutes to make.  Ugh.  Almost there though!

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You

Thank You

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!